Firearm silencers (also known as suppressors) are well known in the art of weaponry, and a variety of construction methods and materials have been proposed for minimizing the noise associated with expanding gases created or produced from the firing of a weapon. Sound energy is produced when the propellant in a cartridge (or shell) is ignited to force the bullet or shotgun projectile down the muzzle of a firearm. Silencers (also known as suppressors) for firearms operate on the principles of converting a portion of this sound energy into heat energy by diverting or trapping the pressurized gas in chambers within the silencer body. The pressurized gas is forced to expand into the spaces within the silencer, thereby decreasing the pressure, velocity and temperature of the gases prior to their release into the atmosphere or external environment.
A major advantage of using a silencer is hearing protection for the firearm user and bystanders. This is especially important in a home defense situation where the confined walls reflect sounds and resulting hearing damage can be more pronounced. In addition, the use of a silencer helps to conceal the location of a firearm, which may be useful in military, police, and sporting, hunting, and/or other shooting situations. The delayed-release of the propellant gases may also reduce the recoil of the firearm and even increase the precision of a rifle by the redirection of the exhaust gases to offset muzzle flip.
The result is that a firearm silencer can absorb and reduce the audible frequencies, vibrations, and contain or reduce muzzle flash resulting from the rapid expansion of gases leaving a firearm muzzle as a projectile exits the gun bore. However, for silencers to effectively contain and subsequently divert expanding gases and other combustion by-products emitted from the muzzle of a firearm, the silencer (suppressor) may require excessively large (volume) and cumbersome cylinders or tubes, especially with higher caliber firearms.
Therefore, in order to effectively suppress the sound of a firearm, a silencer (or suppressor) must have an internal volume large enough to capture gases emitted from the firearm before releasing the cooled gases to the atmosphere. The larger the internal volume of the silencer, the greater amount of sound can be suppressed, and so it is desirable to increase the size of the silencer for effective sound suppression. However, to achieve this, with conventional concentric, cylindrical silencers (or suppressors) having a desired internal volume, the outer diameter of the suppressor becomes too large and the suppressor can interfere with sight lines of the firearm. Additionally, with conventional concentric, cylindrical suppressors having a smaller outer diameter tube would then result in a longer silencer which impacts the overall length of the firearm.
Current gun silencers use a fixed length chamber to suppress the sound of a projectile as said projectile exits a gun barrel. The elements in the chamber are stationary and function to channel, absorb, or delay sound waves through the fixed chamber; hence the overall length of the silencer is fixed and can be too long, thereby impacting the overall length of the firearm. In view of the preceding, there is a need for a firearm silencer or sound suppressor having an effective internal volume that does not burden the firearm by adding unnecessary length to the barrel of the gun.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.